Cold edged bodies

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Since I just received a weather warning for Aberystwyth, (looks like it’s storms and hide tide time again, brace yourselves those at home!) this post I wrote earlier seems all the more apt. After Monday’s wet and mild weather things have been getting steadily colder and we’ve had a bit of snow fall, it all got much nicer to get about on. Given I was pretty worried about how my sun-loving self would cope in the cold, I thought I’d reflect a bit on the temperature and light conditions.

As the mercury has been dropping, I’m now developing my own internal thermometer. At about minus twenty, without ski trousers, my legs are a little bit chilled even when power walking about with long johns and normal trousers. I need a scarf to stop my face and nose hurting, but this creates the condensation problem – frozen scarf and after a while a bit of frozen eye lashes! I saw a friend earlier with a frosty moustache too. It’s all manageable though, as long as the mittens stay on (mittens are magic!) especially as the wind is very minimal. The dry cold is much easier to keep out with lots of layers than the damp bone-chilling not-that-cold more common in the UK, and I haven’t even had to up it to 2 jumpers as yet :). Obvious but true: it is clearly such a personal thing, I see all kind of variations of layers in all kinds of weather.

Longyearbyen at about 11.30 am

Nyben at 11.20

SUN! 2.40pm

It’s been getting steadily lighter since Monday as well, it’s pretty light now at breakfast, which last week was dark, and there are beautiful pink sunrise hues on the mountains across the fjord. It was still pretty light at 4pm in the evening yesterday. Here you can see just how fast things are changing: roughly 15 mins extra either end of the day, each day! That might not seem like a lot, but over the past week the change is very noticeable. The polar night is long, but the drawing out at least is fast. It’s really tricky for me to get the camera settings and photoshopping right – but these three look roughly how I remember it!